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Piccinini
graduated the college of Fine Arts in Painting & Economic History, having a
wide range of interests, from sociology to technology and computer graphics.
She works in a variety of media, such as: painting, sculpture, video, sound and
digital prints.
The very first room was showing a
video on a flat screen TV mounted on the wall entitled “From within”. A bizarre
landscape with amber like rocks surrounds a woman sitting in the centre of the
space bowing her head. From her mouth
pours a thick glue like liquid. The
looped video makes it in to an eternal female cathartic process. On closer inspection we realize in fact that
she has herself created this whole environment around herself. It has this
metaphorical aspect of Mother Nature. According to the artist perhaps she has
created it so she can feel protected from the world. What
to us appears grotesque, to Piccinini is “honey-like nectar pouring from an
amorphous organism”. G.K. Chesterton argued, “energy and joy are the
father and mother of the grotesque” (qtd in Harpham, 8). Never darkness,
never horror. At the core of these
sculptures, lie that energy and joy mixed with love.
Piccinini is enchanted by the irrepressible productive quality of the organic world. Her creations encapsulate this anxiety as well as wonder. She is incredibly impressed by nature’s drive to reproduce. Piccinini manifests her fascination in her hyper real sculptures. The success of these works relies on its similitude to the real world. In her interview she says that she has come to a point in her work when she can break the rule of suspended disbelief. Piccinini reminds us that “it is very seductive to think that we could find a simple technological solution to complex ecological problems such as extinction. It is far more exciting to talk about genetic engineering than to designate a large area of habitat/real estate as national park so that dozens or even hundreds of native species might be given a better chance of survival.”
In another room we encounter meticulous drawings made on a skin like silicone support with hair. These are both literal and representational. On the one hand these are literal as these drawings are actually works about hair growing in skin but at the same time they depict a drawing. We see an image of a botanical illustration of a plant, which provides taxonomies to understand. In this work thorns surround beautiful flowers. These flowers are in the form of actual fleshy pink orifices, which is a reference to the fact that flowers are actually the sexual organs of plants. This leads us to second the saline theme in her work – the idea of fecundity.
In “Carrier”, a bear like man with a big gut, carries an elderly clothed white woman. The possible conversations we can have with this work are what do we expect from animals we create for a change? He is a servant as he is carrying as a slave a vulnerable and possibly inferior human. The relationship of servitude here makes us uneasy. Though it is not a totally black and white situation. He is almost like a sage embarking on a journey with this woman. There seems to be a physical and emotional connection, an intimacy and equality. Knowing how we treat the animals, this would not be the situation in real life. In Piccinini’s words, ”We really do not share the same kind of equality with animals we share the planet with”.
In her work ‘Lovers’, we encounter motorbikes with human emotions - anthropomorphized machines . The whimsical and funny mix here with the instinct to imply human emotions like desire not only to all animals but even to inanimate objects. Machines have a gender and they show off like male peacocks trying to impress the female. They are intertwined showing affection and love. In this work she exhibits her desire to humanize technology in the human quest to homogenize the manufactured ideas of perfection. It implies the genealogy that humans and technology are increasingly intertwined. Taking science as her underlying mode she explores her fascination with medical science and biotechnology. She further explores the fears and concerns of modern society, such as appearance, ageing and disease.
We as spectators seem to follow a narration with lifesize, hyper real, and startling hybrid alien like creatures. These creatures make us curious enough to walk closer to scrutinize them, but a glance in to their eyes is enough to raise the palpitations of the heart. The artist sees them as ‘beautiful rather than grotesque, miraculous rather than freakish’.
The exhibitions raises the question of human responsibility in the changing scenarios of relationships and understanding in this age of contemporary technology and culture in the name of progress & development. It questions the safe path in co existence of humans, nature, science and technology with deep ethical issues. It also raises questions about the future of the body in the age of genetic engineering, stem cell research, advanced prosthetics, cloning, and other medical breakthroughs, which will lead to radical changes in human identity and psychology, and to our relationship to other species with whom we might find kinship.
Sabrina
Osborne
Those Who Dream by Night : Patricia Piccinini
Huanch de Venison, London
28 Nov - 19 Jan 2013
After a walk through Oxford Street in central London, peeping through the glistened high end luxury brands finally I opened the doors of the Haunch of Venison presenting the first UK solo exhibition of internationally acclaimed Australian artist Patricia Piccinini. Piccinini has exhibited internationally including major museums and biennials. Spread on the two floors the exhibition are five new large-scale sculptural works alongside a few earlier works from 2005 to 2011.Piccinini
graduated the college of Fine Arts in Painting & Economic History, having a
wide range of interests, from sociology to technology and computer graphics.
She works in a variety of media, such as: painting, sculpture, video, sound and
digital prints. Piccinini is enchanted by the irrepressible productive quality of the organic world. Her creations encapsulate this anxiety as well as wonder. She is incredibly impressed by nature’s drive to reproduce. Piccinini manifests her fascination in her hyper real sculptures. The success of these works relies on its similitude to the real world. In her interview she says that she has come to a point in her work when she can break the rule of suspended disbelief. Piccinini reminds us that “it is very seductive to think that we could find a simple technological solution to complex ecological problems such as extinction. It is far more exciting to talk about genetic engineering than to designate a large area of habitat/real estate as national park so that dozens or even hundreds of native species might be given a better chance of survival.”
In another room we encounter meticulous drawings made on a skin like silicone support with hair. These are both literal and representational. On the one hand these are literal as these drawings are actually works about hair growing in skin but at the same time they depict a drawing. We see an image of a botanical illustration of a plant, which provides taxonomies to understand. In this work thorns surround beautiful flowers. These flowers are in the form of actual fleshy pink orifices, which is a reference to the fact that flowers are actually the sexual organs of plants. This leads us to second the saline theme in her work – the idea of fecundity.
As I moved from one space to another in
gallery, the works started growing on me. Another work “Ghost” imagines the
body as protein and corporal, but not as a recognizable animal or human. It is startling, because
the artist has taken the familiar, the homogenized, and flipped it to be
imperfect and disparate. It is a
response to the emerging understanding of body as a mutable entity. For
Piccinini it is disappointing that the end result/final outcome/idea of
aesthetic, is so narrow. Hyperrealism is undermined by an intended tendency to
be real.
In these sculptures skin works like
a dividing line between the inner and outer worlds. It also serves as a
blurring point when the spectator is provided with unsettling glimpses of what
could be growing inside these lumps - maybe living bundles of flesh. The
strategically positioned and often half open orifices show developing, ready to
ooze, palpitating organs – a raw expression of fecundity, a sign that the body is seen as a site of
production. In “Carrier”, a bear like man with a big gut, carries an elderly clothed white woman. The possible conversations we can have with this work are what do we expect from animals we create for a change? He is a servant as he is carrying as a slave a vulnerable and possibly inferior human. The relationship of servitude here makes us uneasy. Though it is not a totally black and white situation. He is almost like a sage embarking on a journey with this woman. There seems to be a physical and emotional connection, an intimacy and equality. Knowing how we treat the animals, this would not be the situation in real life. In Piccinini’s words, ”We really do not share the same kind of equality with animals we share the planet with”.
In her work ‘Lovers’, we encounter motorbikes with human emotions - anthropomorphized machines . The whimsical and funny mix here with the instinct to imply human emotions like desire not only to all animals but even to inanimate objects. Machines have a gender and they show off like male peacocks trying to impress the female. They are intertwined showing affection and love. In this work she exhibits her desire to humanize technology in the human quest to homogenize the manufactured ideas of perfection. It implies the genealogy that humans and technology are increasingly intertwined. Taking science as her underlying mode she explores her fascination with medical science and biotechnology. She further explores the fears and concerns of modern society, such as appearance, ageing and disease.
We as spectators seem to follow a narration with lifesize, hyper real, and startling hybrid alien like creatures. These creatures make us curious enough to walk closer to scrutinize them, but a glance in to their eyes is enough to raise the palpitations of the heart. The artist sees them as ‘beautiful rather than grotesque, miraculous rather than freakish’.
The exhibitions raises the question of human responsibility in the changing scenarios of relationships and understanding in this age of contemporary technology and culture in the name of progress & development. It questions the safe path in co existence of humans, nature, science and technology with deep ethical issues. It also raises questions about the future of the body in the age of genetic engineering, stem cell research, advanced prosthetics, cloning, and other medical breakthroughs, which will lead to radical changes in human identity and psychology, and to our relationship to other species with whom we might find kinship.
As
the Chief Curator for one of her other exhibitions, Alice Gray Stites says
“Hybridity is a defining characteristic of contemporary existence: the
mysteries of identity—both aesthetic and genetic—are increasingly complex and
potentially fantastical. Our global village shelters both the human and animal
kingdoms, and the boundaries between them may be dissolving, as many of these
artworks suggest: animals transform, merge, and mutate, with others, with
humans, and with machines, offering both a provocative vision of the future and
an incisive examination of human behavior and psychology—what drives, delights,
and frightens us—in the new millennium.”
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